The premise of Access to Life is based on the Global Fund's campaign of providing free antiretroviral drugs to people with AIDS in developing countries. Hoping to bring the face of the global pandemic to a wider audience, they entered into a partnership last year with Magnum Photos, structured around eight photographers traveling to nine countries to meet the individuals and their families in the process of receiving life-saving treatment. In the fall of last year and in the spring of this year, each photographer made two separate trips, first to meet the people about to begin drug treatment, and then, some months later, to witness how their lives had changed as a result of that. Each on his own schedule, the photographers returned with still images, video footage, audio files, even physical ephemera, and the immediate challenge was how to take stock of all this, and figure out how to render it into exhibition form, and how to meet the daunting exhibition opening deadline of June 14.

Enough, maybe, to say that those challenges were met, to the extent that the show opened on time, is up now, and has been getting gratifying press. But it's also entirely fair to say that none of us involved had an unerring sense, at the beginning of the ten day installation period, of what the show would look or feel like. We knew it came in eight sections, corresponding to the eight artists and the nine countries represented: Eli Reed (Peru), Steve McCurry (Vietnam), Gilles Peress (Rwanda), Jonas Bendiksen (Haiti), Jim Goldberg (India), Paolo Pellegrin (Mali), Alex Majoli (Russia), and Larry Towle (Swaziland and South Africa). Two earlier site visits to the Corcoran I made with Danielle Jackson, Magnum's estimable director of exhibitions and cultural projects, had allowed us to know generally whose work would go which walls; but once we arrived on Monday morning, June 2, to begin installing, we realized we were seeing much of the work for the very first time.

Hence began the adventure of the next ten days, as one by one the photographers themselves all arrived, and we each of us realized we'd done much right and also made some errors, although we'd probably disagree as to what rings right and what hits a false note. Certainly the exhibition as a single gesture comes off as far more dramatic and theatrical than I'd imagined, due principally to the interplay between those sections feeling intimate and modest and those feeling assertive and spectacular. That's due also to how the sections/countries are sequenced on the walls relative to each other; as I'd found myself saying more than once during the installation process, it made sense to view the Corcoran show as the beta version of Access to Life, in light of its forthcoming existence as a book scheduled for a fall release as well as the exhibition itself scheduled to be seen in Paris next December and thereafter, possibly, in Mexico City, Rome, and Berlin.

I was speaking to someone at the press preview who remarked to the effect that there hadn't been â€œan AIDS exhibitionâ€ in her recent memory, and I knew what she meant; at least in this country, the post-1980 genre of â€œAIDS exhibitionsâ€ seems to have largely drifted away as the â€œcrisisâ€ itself was assumed to have been solved by the widespread availability of antiretroviral drugs. That myopic untruth, one that only a citizen of a â€œdevelopedâ€ country would be likely to hold, lies at the heart of the Global Fund's desire to produce Access to Life: to provide visual evidence (and to give it a face and a heart) that the AIDS crises are ongoing. It's a heart-breaking exhibition, actually – something else we weren't expecting.

--Bill Horrigan, Wexner Center Director of Media Arts

*In a bit of insider trading, our first contact at the Corcoran was then-Exhibition Assistant Katie Murnane, who at that point was already planning on relocating to Columbus, and who as of June 23, now holds that position at the Wexner Center. Also, in planning the show, we were considering producing a gallery guide for visitors to the Corcoran, and after I showed the Magnum people the Wexner Center's Adi Nes exhibition guide, they contacted Wexner Center graphic designer Erica Anderson (who'd done the Nes piece), who ended up producing the terrific Access to Life document.

Most people know Chuck Helm as the Wexner Center's Director of Performing Arts, but he's also a soccer fanatic. With that in mind, we asked him to send us a few of his UEFA 08 picks for the finals and semi-finals. His answers are below (we also take no responsibility if you bet the family vacation fund on any of these).

Germany vs. Turkey:
Germany....they're a powerhouse team and Turkey's injury and foul problems are too much of a issue to overcome.

Russia vs. Spain:
This is tougher call...but I think Spain will prevail. Striker combo of David Villa and Fernando Torres is very impressive.

Final:
Germany...overall better team defensively and their level of experience will be the difference.

Curator Eva Meyer-Hermann discusses the upcoming exhibition, Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms. In this interview she talks about the origin of the project and how it's different from other Warhol exhibitions.

Last night's first Wex Drive-In of the summer was a rousing success. More than 700 filmgoers came out to enjoy perfect weather, great food, and a classic movie. If you were there, tell us what you thought in the comments section below (don't be shy, either). And if you missed it, don't worry: the next Wex Drive-In is July 17 and features a screening of the Orson Welles film noir Lady from Shanghai.